Erroneous BTC Transaction Fee Overpayment Returned to Paxos by F2Pool

By: Isha Das

An unintentional overpayment error in a Bitcoin transaction, which escalated the transaction fee to approximately $510,000 - about 480,000 times the average network fee, has been rectified. The error was traced back to blockchain infrastructure firm, Paxos. The miner, F2Pool, who happened to receive the overpayment, has returned to Paxos the significant amount.

Paxos had attempted to transfer a modest 0.074 BTC on September 10, 2023, which is less than $2,000 in worth. But due to a software bug, the resulting transaction fee turned out to be a staggering 19 BTC, equivalent to about $510,000. This erroneous transaction fee stands to date as the highest transaction fee ever registered on the Bitcoin network.

Jameson Lopp, the co-founder of CasaHODL, suggested that the error could have sprung from an exchange or payment processor address software issue that miscalculated the change output, resulting in the fee inflation. Paxos attested to this error, clarifying that the mistake only impacted the company's corporate operations and not its customers, ensuring that customer funds remained safe. The company also dismissed speculations of PayPal's involvement in the erroneous incident.

Chun Wang, the co-founder of F2Pool, had given the overpaying user a three-day window to claim the overpaid fees, failing which the funds would be distributed amongst the miners. As such, the colossal overpayment fee was returned to Paxos on September 15, thereby rectifying the error created by this historical transaction.